Eval cafe

Rhoda shared an update of how far she had gone with her work on the draft list of competencies for evaluators practising in South Africa and the process she hoped to follow going forward.

There has been a lot of talk about lack of diversity in the evaluation sector in SA. There are a range of initiatives to encourage the growth and diversification of evaluation sector. This includes discussions about emerging evaluators, young evaluators, etc. Government in its procurement processes also aims to increase the participation of black owned firms in the evaluation process in line with the country's transformation agenda. Still the question remains: what is transformation and why should the evaluation discipline in SA be concerned with these questions?

The B Impact Assessment is a free tool that has been developed by the global non-profit to help companies measure their social and environmental performance. To date the tool has been accessed by more than 50,000 companies globally.

In this EvalCafe, Ms. Williams facilitated short inputs from various of the SAMEAns that participated in the conference. Speakers shared some highlights from the conference, particularly on Evaluative Thinking.

Theory of change has entered swiftly and forcefully into the practice of international development and governance. It has important innovations to add to how we do development planning.

It’s a truism to claim that a substantial gap exists between the principles of methodology we’re taught, and their application in the real world. Limited budgets, time constraints and data gaps all jeopardise the quality of evaluation work and the utility of evaluation results. Evaluators too, are guilty of practice that diminishes the limitations and panders to the politics of clients.

“Research and Monitoring and Evaluation – aren’t they all the same thing really?””If I am a researcher, of course I can do evaluations...”In this EvalCafé Dr Lauren Wildschut explores some of the intersections and differences between the terms research, monitoring and evaluation. This session aims to contribute to an on-going international debate in the evaluation arena.

Evaluation professionals have a mixed history of educational and experiential backgrounds and this has led to various understandings of what is a ‘competent’ evaluator.

Evaluative thinking is an activity involving the posing of questions of substance and determining what data is needed to address the questions.

In 2016, SAMEA, in partnership with the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), the ZENEX Foundation, Centre for Research on Evaluation Science and Technology (CREST) and Creative Consulting & Development Works (CC&DW) held a series of seminars with Prof Laurie Stevahn from the American Evaluation Association (AEA)